In an economy where companies need to be accounting for every penny to stay alive a new survey by Mobi, a mobile device management company, has found that companies waste both time and money on mobile devices. The waste is related to money spent on unused minutes and unnecessary charges. Making matters worse is the fact that nearly half of companies do not have a published mobile device policy.{ad}

The survey included both employees and information technology professionals. According to the survey, only one in four employees use most of the minutes paid for by their company. Making matters worse, some employees state that the company pays for wireless device service they don’t even use. One thing employees do seem to use is extras such as ringtones and data applications. One-third of employees admitted to downloading extras and 14% of employees cost their company US$10 or more a month through the practice.

The news doesn’t get much better when IT professionals were surveyed. 43% of the IT professionals in the survey believe that they overpay for wireless device service. Out of that total another 22% believe they overpay as much as 20% per month.

According to Brandon Hamptom, a director at Mobi, 64% of companies are re-evaluating IT budgets during this recession. Hampton stated that one way companies can cut costs is by simply having a mobile device policy in place. Clients of Mobi are said by Hampton to usually experience a 25% reduction in mobile costs just through the introduction of a mobile device policy.

Brian’s Opinion
The results of this survey should make any company with mobile devices cringe at the amount of waste possible as a result of the misuse of resources. The fact that only one in four use the monthly minutes the company is paying for is a great example of waste. Through a simple evaluation of usage many companies can switch to monthly wireless plans which reflect actual usage by employees.

A clear lack of enforcement is also a concern when you have one-third of employees being able to download ringtones and data applications which are charged back to the company. Any telecommunications manager that has not implemented a strict account usage rule on company phones should be tied to a rail. At the very least, companies should be reviewing the mobile phone bills of employees and charging back any extras appropriately.

Probably the biggest message someone reading this article can take away is to implement a published mobile device policy at their company if they don’t have one. It sounds like a pretty simple way to instantly save your company an average of 25% in costs. That would put any employee on the map considering how money conscious most companies are these days.